How Michael Jordan's retirement(s) aid his aura of invincibility

 

How Michael Jordan's retirement(s) aid his aura of invincibility

 

 

Now this post isn't to indict MJ and say that he was ducking competition or any particular team because he wouldn't know who the hell he'd be facing in the playoffs and in the finals if he made their before he retired. So I wanted to get that out the way first but what this post IS going to detail is how the timing of his retirement(s) have aided in the legacy of Michael Jordan.

 

Now everyone knows the history of Michael Jordan as far as his accomplishments, style of play that defied gravity and dropped jaws across the country, his overall style with baggy (for the time) shorts and gold chains down to the bald head and hoop earring. And me being a full disclosure person I'll be upfront and mention that I am a big Lebron James fan and the way things are nowadays you can't like Lebron and MJ according social media law. But with that said this post is going to be revealing in that in will open some minds (especially in younger readers) as to why MJ is revered as an unbeatable force when that's simply not true, he was a great all time great player but his reputation is that he was unbeatable and simply had a never die mentality that made him win every big game he ever played when he had the proper help. This narrative is false and unfair when you then compare MJ to his contemporaries and current greats because Jordan was drafted to a team with nearly 2 20 point scorers and yet he still with that around him could only muster 9 more wins than the Bulls had the previous year. And then the next year with him only playing 18 games his team was still only 8 games worse than it was his rookie year with him playing the whole season. In the following season his Bulls got 40 wins and lost in the first round for the 3rd straight year and his second sweep in 3 tries. He and the Bulls were 1-9 in their first 9 playoff games (against great competition admittedly but hell to not even get one game against the Celts *the one win was vs Milwaukee*). The next season he breaks through a bit with a rookie Scottie Pippen, Charles Oakley, Dave Corzine and Sam Vincent and win 50 games. MJ hits the "shot" and wins the series in a win or go home game 5 vs the Cavs and then proceed to get smoked by Detroit in the next series in a gentleman's sweep of 5 games.   

Now we know where the story goes from here, MJ continues to struggle with Detroit and their "Jordan Rules" until Pippen develops into and all star and Detroit gets a little old and tired after 3 straight NBA Finals appearances and league expansion waters down the league in general making easier for one individual player to impact the game more than ever (Rick Mahorn is taken from Detroit and is drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves the offseason before the Bulls beat the Pistons so Mike never really beat the full Bad Boys. Zeke retires 3 seasons after the loss and Laimbeer, Mark Aguire, James Edwards and Vinnie Johnson are all old and gone too). And after they get to the finals the run into Magic and the Pat Riley-less and Kareem-less Lakers (with that year being Magic's last full season with him in his 30's already and announcing he had the HIV virus) the Bulls lost the first game with Michael guarding Magic as he couldn't stop him from looking over MJ and making crisp passes while giving Mike buckets too. In Game 2 Phil puts Scottie on Magic and that along with James Worthy and Scott getting injured and missing the rest of series in game 4 spelled doom for the Lake Show. MJ played great as well once off of Magic defensively and primarily guarding Vlade Divac and becoming a rover defensively. And from that point on MJ's legacy was being built as never say die gunner who could lock up defensively and hit every big shot (with the help of the NBA and Nike) and while most of these attributes are true it's false to say that this is how his whole career played out and from that point on MJ won every year he played in the 90's (except 95' when he came back from baseball but most people forgive this loss for Mike and like Nick Wright said I believe the NBA has burnt the tapes anyway so there's no proof it happened lol)

And this is where the source for this post came from. Now in 93' Michael said he retired because he said he had lost the desire to play basketball at the age of 30 and he also said that the death of his father also shaped his decision (although there are several theories that this retirement was a secret suspension because of Jordan's outrageous gambling addiction. Reporting losing 1.25 million on a golf course and gambling before a playoff game against Knicks were the highlights of his gambling). Instead of staying and playing through the "boredom", trials and tribulations of that offseason he decided to go play minor league baseball. And while Space Jam and the media made great stories and reports on how this was his father's lifelong wish for him to play baseball and MJ was simply granting that wish the truth is no other superstar would have gotten that benefit and others have played through their own tragedies and mishaps as well. Hell, Magic returned after announcing he had HIV back when we all thought that was death sentence for him yet he still played. And many players have dealt with tragedies close to home but that didn't prompt them to leave the game. And if a suspension was really why he left the game he could have been a great example for kids and others on how you can make mistakes and come back from them and still be great. But I believe the reason he really retired was just to preserve his legacy. After he had won his third ring they were already building a statue for him in Chicago saying he was the greatest ever and Nike and Hanes and every other company associated with him had profited off of the perception that he was as close to perfect as they come as basketball player on and off the court, so him losing in the playoffs because he was distracted, bored, suspended or a combination of all those things were unacceptable from a financial and historical standpoint. Not only is it truly unfathomable to believe the Bulls would have won a 4th straight finals with a bored, distracted or suspended MJ but even from a basketball perspective it's not likely at all knowing that the Houston Rockets would be in the finals waiting for a mentally drained and exhausted Bulls team with their superstar either missing most of the season or being severely distracted all season (Hakeem became the first player ever to win MVP and DYOP in the same year in 94' he was simply unstoppable then and a terrible matchup for the Bulls who went six games with a Suns team and almost 7 if Paxson misses the shot in game 6 that wasn't as good as the Rockets. Granted the Bulls did at Kukoc but that was his first year. And we saw what happened vs Orlando in 95', the same result could be expected in that series whether Jordan played the whole year or not. With no Grant who actually went to Orlando the Bulls had no interior defense to handle Shaq which is why the brought in Rodman the next year when they won 72 games.)

Now in 1999 it was clear that MJ still had the game to keep playing but he decided to retire with Scottie demanding a trade after rumors that he was gonna get traded for Tracy Mcgrady in T-Mac's rookie year, Rodman wanting to leave and Phil's contract expiring along with the looming lockout. No one faults MJ for retiring at that point, he had proven all that any player in the history of the game could by then 6-6 in NBA finals with 6 finals MVP's, 5 time league MVP and the highest career PPG avg. And with that last steal, pushoff and shot you couldn't write a better way to walk off (which again aids his legacy). But then in 2001 he did something weird and came back and played with Wizards. And as an old man he played very impressively with the Wiz but this again brought up the premise for the post. If you could still play but you stayed retired this post wouldn't be written but when he decided to come back in 2001 it made me beg the question did he just retire in 1999 because he knew he wasn't assured another title and ASSURANCE of another title was the only way he would continue to play after 98'. To me this has to be a knock (a small knock but a knock still) on MJ, I mean Magic didn't retire after Kareem did, Ginobili didn't retire after Duncan did and the same with a host of other players. Also if you were going to end up with another team anyway why didn't you just keep playing and go to another team in 99? The reason I believe is because again his legacy from 91' on (forgetting 95' lol) was that of one of a God, someone who could never lose not even to space aliens who take the talent of all stars and squad up against him and cartoon characters. He couldn't tarnish that legacy by playing without Pippen, Rodman and Phil in Chicago and losing in the first round of the playoffs. And going to another team would look weird after producing all those damn black and red shoes lol. So I wrap this up with this, I'm not a Jordan hater at all. But I hate and I mean HATE Jordan "Stans" who gloss over his faults and don't admit that he avoided the times when he was most likely to look human and vulnerable by retiring before he would lose. And I make post like this because I am attempting to balance the coverage that players today get, because players today get judged on a quarter to quarter basis, I mean we comb through their performances with a fine tooth comb and then have two hour debate shows that are on a loop to talk about how bad they were and any of the court speculations that surround them. MJ avoided all of that and his supporters sweep all of his shortcomings and bad behavior (punching teammates etc. can you imagine how that would be covered nowadays? There would be a meme up 10 minutes after and it'll be the lead of First Take for 5 days) but don't do the same for the Lebron's, Steph's, Durant's etc. of today. Well as long as I'm here I'm gonna provide that balance that Stephen A. and Skip Bayless don't.